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Chapter Twelve
Seeing Gran somewhere other than her shop always threw me for a loop. It was like when a kid saw their teacher outside the school. I knew, logically, she went elsewhere and yet finding her not surrounded by the potions and talismans and the scent of incense felt wrong.
Not that I was about to complain when she showed up at my house out of the blue. She’d never done it—in fact, I didn’t think I’d ever given her my address—but Gran was the sort of person who didn’t get turned away. She could have shown up drunk and belligerent attwo in the morning and the right choice would be to let her in and be nice about it.
She’d yet to saywhyshe’d come, but again, one didn’t rush her.
She grimaced when I offered her the tea. I’d never mastered that skill. She pushed the cup aside, making no attempt to pretend she planned to drink it, despite my making it. “I’ve had extra customers, Ava.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. The thing you learn is that the more people who turn to religion or spirituality, the worse things are going. No one needs the gods when everything is going well.”
I frowned. “Is it whatever I’m dealing with? Because this isn’t about Olin, not anymore. It can’t be.”
She leaned forward, her forearms on my dining room table. “It’s something big. I can feel it in my bones, like a storm rolling in. It aches. I’m not the only one, either. That’s why people are coming—that’s why they’re looking for talismans and spells, because they may not knowwhatis coming, but they know it isn’t good.”
I thought back to the chill I’d felt from that shadow, a fear that went deep, like it was primal, like I knew it on some old level, like looking at a snake. “I’m out of my depth, Gran. I don’t understand what I’m even looking for.”
“The funny thing is that you don’t often have to look. You’re a nexus in this, something all the spokes go out from. It doesn’t matter what you do, where you go, you’ll get drawn into it.”
“Does that mean I’ll win? What is this, fate? Because fate hasn’t done much for me.”
She laughed, an old chuckle full of years and experience. “Fate is a bitch, Ava, and it doesn’t decide answers. Fate is like a sociopath with too much time. It sets up the pieces, keeps shoving people in the direction it wants, but the outcome? It has no idea. So you, Ava, you’re the center cog. This is circling you. The thing in your living room, Olin, Melinda, the shadow, Fredrick…it is all moving around you.”
“Fredrick? Who’s that?”
Her eyes had gone white again, that freaky pale way they did when she wasn’t looking at anything. She swallowed, and damn if I didn’t see fear in her face…
Then she blinked slowly, and each time she closed her eyes some of the white leeched away and the color came back. When they were regular again, she looked at me. “What?”
“You said Fredrick. I don’t know Fredrick.”
“Did I?”
A bang on the door happened a moment before a crash. I jumped to my feet, but Gran didn’t budge.
Before I could do anything else, three men strolled into the kitchen, their steps casual as if they hadn’t just broken in.
The men were huge, and they walked with the sort of confidence that made me slow down and take notice.
Confidence was always bad.
The man on the left looked between Gran and I, ignoring her as soon as he saw her as if she were unimportant. “Ava Harlin?”
Saying no was probably a good idea, right? I mean, if I wasn’t Ava, that meant I wasn’t involved in all this bullshit. I could be Cathy, a woman who didn’t have people breaking into her house.
Ah Cathy, the wonderful, normal, boring woman who never had werewolves or vampires bothering her and certainly wasn’t attacked by poltergeists.
But I wasn’t Cathy, so I stared at the newcomers and nodded.
They took a step forward, but Gran tapped a finger on the counter. It was a single loud click of her nail, and somehow it stilled them. “In my day, an alpha showed up himself.”
Alpha?
The words were enough for the men to pause. The one in the front drew his shoulders back, puffing out his chest. “Alpha is busy. He doesn’t have time to run down every little errand. What business is it of yours?”
“She’s a friend.”
